North Korea postpones family reunions

South Korean Wang So-Goon (right) waves to her North Korean relatives as they bid farewell after a separated family reunion meeting at the Mount Kumgang resort in 2010.

AFP: Korea Pool

North Korea has indefinitely postponed planned reunions for families separated during the Korean war, in a move that will set back a recent easing of tensions between the neighbours.

The six-day reunions were scheduled to begin on Wednesday in the Mount Kumgang resort, just north of the militarised border between North and South Korea.

But North Korean state media has cited a government body in charge of cross-border relations as saying Seoul's "hostile" policy was behind the postponement.

It said it could never tolerate Seoul misusing such dialogue to heighten conflicts.

"We postpone the impending reunions of separated families until a normal atmosphere is created for talks and negotiations to be able to move forward," the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea was quoted as saying.

"As long as the South's conservatives deal (with) inter-Korean relations hostility and abuse...such a basic humanitarian issue as family reunions cannot be resolved."

The highly-anticipated reunions of some 100 families had been seen as an important element in improving ties between the North and South Korea, which are technically still at war.

Millions of Koreans were torn apart by the 1950-53 war and some 72,000 South Koreans are believed to still be alive and on a waiting list to be reunited with family members in the North.

It was to be a more symbolic event and would have been the first reunion in nearly three years, after the program was suspended in late 2010 after the North shelled South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island.

The government in Seoul is yet to comment on the announcement, but observers believe it's designed to place pressure on the South to resume cross-border tours to the Mount Kumgang resort which is also an important source of revenue for Pyongyang.

Tours to the resort were suspended in 2008 after a South Korean tourist who strayed into the restricted zone was shot dead by a North Korean soldier.

Seoul says it won't restart the tours until Pyongyang apologises for the incident.